1. Be Eco with your Christmas Tree

It’s the ultimate Christmas decoration and British people buy more than 10 million of them every year. But what is a Christmas tree’s carbon footprint, and should you buy natural or plastic?

A natural tree that is sourced locally has a relatively low carbon footprint. Its real environmental impact is in its disposal. – If a tree ends up in landfill, it will have an 80% larger carbon footprint than if it is incinerated or home composted. What’s more, the UK government states it costs taxpayers £22 million to dispose of all the trees each year! 

In landfill, away from oxygen the tree decomposes and produces methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Conversely, the CO2 footprint of a plastic tree is in its production and transportation (the majority are produced in China). It is said 10 years of use is required to ensure a plastic tree has a lower environmental impact than a natural tree.

The CO2 footprint of each tree option:

• a natural tree that is incinerated or composted equates to 12 car miles;
• a natural tree that is put to landfill equates to 54 car miles;
• a plastic tree that is put to landfill after 10 years equates to 135 car miles.

What about a Rental tree?

One way to reduce your environmental impact and resolve the aforementioned eco-friendly Christmas tree dilemma is to rent a tree over the festive period and return it in the new year for a nominal fee. More and more garden centres across the UK and U.S. are adopting such services.

3. Consider a Mossy Earth Membership Gift

If you’re looking for a truly unique gift that encapsulates the Christmas spirit of generosity, then why not try a subscription that gives back to nature. Please your friends, relatives and mother earth herself, with our membership gift that restores and protects wild ecosystems and biodiversity. 

See our range of rewilding interventions you can help that are focused on fragile ecosystems and wildlife, and fighting climate change.

Our membership gift comes in a range of prices for you to choose from, with options from £30 onwards depending on the size of the impact you want to make. Regardless of how much spend, each gift gives your loved ones a year’s membership which regularly funds impactful rewilding actions. At the end of the year, your lucky gift recipient gets to choose if they want to renew the subscription or stop there. 

As an example, the default gift option of £60, €72, or $81 delivers your impact on wilderness in the following ways:

• by supporting 12 or more rewilding projects that protect and restore degraded landscapes and biodiversity;
• by planting 24 native trees on your behalf to support key ecosystems and wildlife;
• this means you’ll offset 0.5 x average footprint.

Wrapped in this present’s bundle will also be access to our app; on-the-ground updates at our project sites; camera trap footage of animals in the wild; direct contact with our team; and stunning imagery and videos of the wildlife and ecosystems we help.

Check out our membership page for more details or click here to purchase a gift with a lasting impact.

5. Choose Wrapping Paper Wisely

On average, it takes 6 mature trees to make one ton of wrapping paper. This equates to approximately 50,000 trees to make the 8,250 tons of paper consumed at Christmas. It’s estimated that Britons use enough wrapping paper to go around the earth’s equator 9 times.

For a number of years now, I have insisted on my family wrapping my gifts in old newspaper, and that name tags are fashioned from the previous year’s Christmas cards. You could go a step further for a sustainable Christmas and insist on no wrapping paper whatsoever, but this does take away a little of the magic.

Another solution is to the sustainable Christmas dilemma is to switch to a long lasting colourful fabric gift wrap and bags such as those produced by The Fabric Wrapping Co or Wrag Wrap, which both offer a wide range of beautiful reusable fabric gift wraps that will make your gift look stunning and last a lifetime.

When it comes to Christmas cards, if you don’t fancy making your own or upcycling old cards, buy recycled ones or plantable cards that turn into wildflowers! Companies like the Thoughtful Human sell such zero waste Christmas cards.